INTRODUCTION BY HOPE DELLON
I started working with Louise in October 2006, after the editor who had bought her first three books left Minotaur for another company. At the time, only Still Life had been published. A Fatal Grace was in bound galleys, and The Cruelest Month was a completed manuscript in search of a title.
Since I needed to read three books in a row, it was lucky that I loved them from the start. Although Louise had me from the acknowledgments at the beginning of Still Life, there came a scene in A Fatal Grace that gave me chills in a way that only the very best manuscripts ever have. (I describe that scene in the recap below.) I even remember where I was when I read it. In those days I had an hour-long commute on the train. I know that I started reading the galleys on the train on a Tuesday night, then continued on Wednesday morning, when we always have our editorial meetings. By the time I got to that meeting, I couldn’t stop talking about how amazing Louise was, except perhaps to ignore everyone else and keep reading more of the story.
When I’m asked what makes her books so great, I usually fall back on a quote from Emily Dickinson: “If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” That’s how I feel about Louise’s novels.
I believe I didn’t meet Louise and her husband, Michael, in person until Malice Domestic in Crystal City, VA, in the spring of 2008. By that time, Still Life had won many awards (including the Anthony, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Dilys, and New Blood Dagger) for Best First Novel, but not the Agatha; and we didn’t want to jinx anything by expecting her to win Best Novel for A Fatal Grace. I remember how thrilling it was when she did win—but what I had forgotten, until Louise mentioned it recently, was that the awards banquet happened to fall on my birthday. Now that she reminds me—and how remarkable for her to remember—I know that she and Michael insisted on taking me to lunch on that Saturday, and made more of a fuss about my birthday than they did about her chances of winning the Agatha. They were as warm and brilliant and funny as you might imagine from reading Louise’s books, and it’s been a joy to work with her ever since.
RECAP
Chapters 1-21: The first lines of A Fatal Grace foretell the death of the nastiest woman in Three Pines: “Had CC de Poitiers known she was going to be murdered she might have bought her husband, Richard, a Christmas gift….” The doomed CC has written a self-help book that prattles about love and enlightenment, even though she is actually like the Snow Queen from the fairytale who pierces everyone’s hearts with ice.
Meanwhile, in “the snow globe that was Three Pines,” CC’s 14-year-old daughter, Crie, has sewn her own chiffon snowflake costume for her school’s Christmas pageant, “to surprise Mommy.” She has been on a diet for a month and is sure her mother will notice soon. Except her mother doesn’t bother to show up.
Clara Morrow and her friend Myrna drive to Montreal, where Clara is dying to see the Christmas windows at Ogilvy’s department store that have enchanted her since childhood. She and her handsome husband, Peter, have been starving artists in Three Pines for years, although his precisely detailed paintings have finally started to sell. No one wants to buy Clara’s wilder depictions of warrior uteruses (!) and melting trees.
Hearing that CC knows important gallery owner Denis Fortin, Clara timidly asks if she would mind showing him her portfolio—which CC disdainfully throws in the trash. “Very annoying,” she says to her lover, photographer Saul Petrov. “Imagine asking me for a favor?” CC has much more important things to do: There’s a sale at Ogilvy’s and she wants to buy a special pair of boots made of baby sealskin with metal claws.
Clara’s joy at the Christmas windows is disrupted by a filthy pile of blankets that turns out to be a beggar throwing up. Disgusted, Clara hastens inside to the book launch for her neighbor, Ruth Zardo, the bitter but brilliant old poet whose friends from Three Pines turn up to support her.
On the escalators at Ogilvy’s, Clara passes CC, who says to the man beside her, “I’m so sorry, Denis, that you think Clara’s art is amateur and banal.” It’s a heart-stopping moment. Devastated, Clara shuffles out of the store and sees the stinking beggar she’d ignored on the way in. Impulsively, Clara gives a package of food she’s just bought to the bag lady, who grasps her wrist and says, “I have always loved your art, Clara.” Whoa. This was the moment when I started to feel as if the top of my head was being taken off.
A few days later it is Christmas Eve in Three Pines, with shortbread stars (Louise’s books always make me hungry) and carolers and a midnight service at St. Thomas’s church, where a child starts to sing with angelic purity. The singer is CC’s daughter, wearing a grotesque pink sundress but with bliss on her face. After the service, the whole village can hear CC berating Crie as a “stupid, stupid girl. You humiliated me. They were laughing at you, you know.” CC’s gutless father barely utters a protest.
When Saul turns up at the Bistro on Christmas, Myrna invites him to the community breakfast and curling match on the following day. It’s a perfect setting for the last job Saul intends to do for CC, who wants pictures of herself “frolicking among the natives at Christmas. If possible he had to get shots of the locals looking at CC with wonder and affection.” A pretty tall order.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté and his wife, Reine-Marie, make their first appearance in the book on the day after Christmas, when they have a tradition of reviewing unsolved cases. “If I was murdered,” says Gamache, “I’d like to think the case wouldn’t just sit unsolved. Someone would make an extra effort.” (I love this man.) Reine-Marie notices that one of the cases is new: There was a bag lady who had hung out at the bus station for years—but was strangled outside of Ogilvy’s department store on the day Clara saw her there. Astoundingly, a copy of Ruth’s new book, signed “You stink, love Ruth,” was found with the body.
Then the phone rings, and the duty officer for Three Pines tells Gamache there has been a murder. So much for a quiet Boxing Day. Within minutes Gamache and his second-in-command, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, are on their way to Three Pines, to investigate the very odd death of CC de Poitiers.
CC’s murder seems impossible: She was electrocuted at the curling match, in the middle of a frozen lake in front of dozens of witnesses. After Gamache gathers his team in the old railway station, Beauvoir recaps the only way CC’s murder could have worked: “A: she had to be standing in water; B: she had to have taken off her gloves; C: she had to touch something electrified; and D: she had to be wearing metal on the bottom of her boots.” Sure, nobody liked CC, but who hated her enough—and had the expertise—to pull off something like that?
Then a new team member arrives unexpectedly: Agent Yvette Nichol—”the rancid, wretched, petty little woman who’d almost ruined their last case”—apparently sent by the Superintendent of the Sûreté. Gamache is furious to see her, and knows that his enemies at Headquarters are still working against him.
With or without the unwelcome Nichol, the team has much to investigate: Where is Saul and what photos might he have taken of the curling match? Why does the coroner find excess niacin in CC’s body? Can it be possibly be coincidence that CC’s book, Be Calm, has the same name as the meditation center Bea Mayer, known as Mother, runs in Three Pines? After Gamache admires The Three Graces, Clara’s painting of Mother and the two other elderly women who are her best friends in Three Pines, she tells him about her poisonous encounter with CC at Ogilvy’s—and he quietly adds Clara’s name to the long list of suspects.
Chapter 22-End: Clues and questions and suspects continue to pile up for Gamache and his team. Having learned that CC de Poitiers, who claimed to be the daughter of Eleanor and Henri de Poitiers, invented both her name and her past (Eleanor de Poitiers, better known as Eleanor of Aquitaine, actually died in 1204), Gamache needs to find out who CC really was. Are there any significant clues to be found in the video cassette of The Lion in Winter that turned up in CC’s garbage after the murder?
Meanwhile, Gamache is astonished when Clara proudly shows him the Li Bien ornament Peter gave her for Christmas, which is exactly like the ball CC supposedly used as the basis for her garbled philosophy. The glass ball is painted with three pine trees, the word Noël, and a single capital letter, L. Was it the picture of the trees that prompted CC to buy the monstrous old Hadley house in Three Pines? Awkwardly, Peter is forced to confess that while he meant to buy Clara something for Christmas this year, he actually found the ball in the Williamsburg dump.
When Gamache meets Émilie Longpré—age 82, captain of the curling team, and one of Clara’s Three Graces—and her dog, Henri, on an early morning walk, she tells him about an encounter with CC at Mother’s meditation center, where CC arrogantly proclaimed that since she was calling her own book and company Be Calm, Mother would have to change the name of her center or perhaps close it altogether. After breakfast, the tiny Émilie gives Gamache & co. a curling lesson that convinces even Beauvoir, who has always scoffed at curling as a sport, that it’s a lot harder than it looks. And Gamache, who finally grasps what it meant when the 78-year-old Mother loudly “cleared the house” at the curling match, suddenly knows how the murderer got away with it.
The questions about CC’s mother keep circling back to the Three Graces. Do they know who the L of the Li Bien ball was, or could it possibly even be one of them? And what might 92-year-old Kaye Thompson, who was sitting next to CC at the match, have seen as she was murdered?
When Saul’s photos are developed, they somehow do not include any shots from the time of the murder. And as eager as Saul seems to be to start a new, better life in Three Pines, he still has one undeveloped roll of film that he hastily throws in the fireplace when Gamache and his team visit him at the chalet he has rented.
With the help of an idea from Clara about the discarded video, the case seems to be coming together, when a raging fire breaks out at Saul’s chalet, and the unlikely trio of Gamache, Beauvoir, and Agent Nichol try to rescue him. Émilie finally tells Gamache the heartbreaking truth about CC’s mother, and the Three Graces prepare to pay the price for what they have done. And then Gamache suddenly realizes there is one last horrible secret in CC’s family.
The book ends at New Year’s, with Reine-Marie’s first visit to Three Pines. Both of them know that the plots against Gamache are growing more sinister, but as they drive home:
In the rearview mirror Armand Gamache could see Three Pines. He got out of the car and stared down at the village, each home glowing with warm and beckoning light, promising protection against a world sometimes too cold. He closed his eyes and felt his racing heart calm.
“Are you all right?” Reine-Marie’s mittened hand slipped into his.
“I’m more than all right.” He smiled. “I have everything.”
FAVORITE QUOTE
Gamache says to Clara, “When someone stabs you it’s not your fault that you feel pain.”
Gamache: “I knew then I was in the company of people who loved not only books, but words. Spoken, written, the power of words.”
CONCLUSION
I am not sure how many times I’ve read A Fatal Grace, but I still find it as extraordinary as I did back in 2006. I think it’s magnificent on so many levels: as a complex and masterful detective story, as a glorious character study, and as an exploration of universal hopes and fears. I love that it can be hilarious one minute and heartbreaking the next.
I also love the way Louise focuses on the power of words, from the literal handwriting on more than one wall, to the hidden meanings of names like Mother, Elle, and Crie (what kind of parents would name a child that?), to the ways that words can kill or heal. I also marvel that someone like me, who is at least as much of a skeptic as Jean-Guy Beauvoir, can find myself wondering about such mysteries as lemon meringue pie.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- If the village of Three Pines truly existed, would you want to live there? Why or why not? How does Christmas bring out the best or the worst in any of the villagers?
- Who is your favorite character in the book so far?
- In Louise’s books I am always stopping to admire wonderful images or jokes or observations (or descriptions of food!). Were there any lines that particularly struck you in Part I?
- What do you think of Ruth’s idea that “most people, while claiming to hate authority, actually yearned for someone to take charge”?
- Gamache tells Lemieux, “All the mistakes I’ve made have been because I’ve assumed something and then acted as though it was fact.” Have you ever made important assumptions that turned out not to be true?
- What interests you most about the two murder victims, CC and the bag lady known only as Elle, and the way Gamache conducts his investigation?
- There are so many clues hidden in plain sight in A Fatal Grace, I lost count at 6 or 7 (all of which I missed the first time through). Did you spot any of them, and did you solve any of the various puzzles before Gamache did?
- What do you make of Gamache’s relationships with the different members of his team, from Beauvoir to Nichol?
- How do you feel about The Three Graces?
- Near the end, Gamache says, “This whole case has been about belief and the power of the word.” I’ll say. What are the ways in which words have power?
- Speaking of belief, what do you make of the apparent brushes with God: the beggar who loved Clara’s art (which Em maintains she had never seen); Gamache finding God in a diner eating lemon meringue pie; Em’s road worker with the sign saying “Ice Ahead”; Billy Williams, etc.?
- Do you agree with Gamache in Chapter 33 that “when you’ve seen the worst you appreciate the best?”
396 replies on “Series Re-Read: A Fatal Grace”
For “Loudspeakers” I’ve thought “Plowed streets” but the street wasn’t plowed sooo, I’m stuck.
What about “High mechanics boat?” Make an X spot…..?
I’mm looking for help with the mysterious utterances of Billy Williams: “Em are ducks”, “Chairs might red glass,” and “Loudspeakers!”
I need help to figure these out…
Please.
Genie S.
I decided that “Chairs might red glass” could be “Jars my tired ass,” because Billy Wms went a different way to the hospital than he did with CC in the truck. He went across the ice and on a snowy road with his snowmobile. When he used the truck with CC, it was very bumpy. All I could get for “Em are ducks” was E. R. Docs” (Emergency Room). Any other suggestions?
Brilliant! I think you’ve got it. 🙂
Yes. Thanks. I have tried for the last few days to figure out what Billy meant. It was fun and I couldn’t stop laughing at the suggestion to “drawl”. With the Southern drawl I speak with, I should have already figured this out. My home is in USA in Georgia on the Savannah River.
Whale oil beef hooked was easy. However, high mechanics boat & chairs might red glass totally befuddle moi! HELP!!
Thanks so much to all for sharing your insights on A FATAL GRACE. I thought I knew all these books really well, but there’s so much else to find in them.
Tomorrow is another book — THE CRUELEST MONTH — with much more on the Hadley house…
Thank you again, Hope, for getting us off to an excellent start in our re-examination of A Fatal Grace, and joining in on our discussions. As you wrote, there is so much more to be found in one of Louise Penny’s books than can be noted in one read-through. I happen to have a special feeling for this book, A Fatal Grace, since it’s the first book I read in the series, and got me introduced to the village of Three Pines and Armand Gamache of the Montreal Surete and his crew.
Just catching up with book 2 here. Finished it a couple of days ago, it was a re-read but I’d forgotten almost all of it. I love these books, and the characters, so much. I am not a reader who tries to solve the mystery. I just go along for the ride. I enjoy her rich, layered plots, and I worry myself sick about Gamache and the forces working against him. Even though I know that no matter what, except for his death, nothing can really shake him. He has Reine-Marie, his family, his love of music and literature, he’s going to be OK.
All that said, one thing really bugged me about this book. Maybe I’m picturing the curling event wrongly. But in my mind, I cannot believe that no one noticed JUMPER CABLES ATTACHED TO A FOLDING CHAIR??? Seriously???? They usually have thick cables with orange rubber coating, and the clips are massive, not little bitty alligator clips. I can hardly get my hands around the handles of mine, they’re BIG. Anyone with a single brain cell would see jumper cables clipped to a metal chair and their alarm bells would deafen everybody in the town. And the chair is sitting out on the ice with only what, 2 or 3 other chairs around it, and they are all right in front of the shoreline bleachers stuffed with onlookers? And the cables aren’t short – they run all the way back along the side of the bleachers to behind, where the truck is? This just seems totally incredible to me. What’s wrong with the picture I’ve built in my head?
Anna,
I loved the way your wrote about the Hadley House, as though it were a young boy in short pants shuffling its feet and saying, “It wasn’t me that did it!” Which of course is true. (Although the stairs falling through with Gamache and Beauvoir MIGHT have been the house’s fault!–but really it’s more because someone neglected to do the necessary repairs). I’ve had some other thoughts along the lines of the Hadley House. Don’t we as human beings naturally associate some homes as either good or bad, depending on who lived (or died) in them? Specifically, real estate agents have noted difficulty selling a house where a murder has taken place. It’s as though the prospective buyers think that if they buy the house, they themselves might get killed. As for Nichol being somewhat akin to the Hadley House, as you wrote in your post, I’m not quite sure what you mean. I’m wondering if you mean that Yvette has somehow become the repository for the fears of her family. I would write more on that, but not sure if that’s what you meant.
Didn’t Ben doctor the stairs so they would give way? I seem to remember it that way.
I kind of like that idea of Nichol being the repository of her family’s fears. Certainly, her father’s fears (and his lies) are at the root of her behavior, and especially of her low self esteem, which seems to fuel her anger and wrong-headedness.
The idea about the comparison with the Hadley house with Nichol is still developing in my head. As Julie said, Yvette has been the reflection of her father’s fears of failure and he fuels that. She is also an expression of the fear of being unattractive and the outsider. So many desire to belong. It is easy to show you belong if there is someone else to collectively exclude, lots of bullying works this way. Of course Nichol doesn’t help herself, something the Hadley house can’t do.
Jean Guy is afraid of Nichol as he is worried that by trying to help her Gamache will be hurt. That could happen. Not everyone responds to kindness with relief. Some respond with resentment and lash out. They can’t tell if the kindness is real or a form of superiority. Jean Guy is also worried about old evils resurfacing from the Arnot case and Nichol being their spy and representative.
It is easier to imagine evil residing in the ugly and neglected than in the beautiful and popular.
I know what you are saying Jane about houses having an association with good or evil. It’s funny. The last three houses we have bought (yes we move a lot!) have definitely radiated warmth and homeliness and it wasn’t just on appearance. One house was already empty, decor was appalling and it reeked of cigarette smoke (gag). It was nothing that I wanted except perhaps location and I certainly wasn’t up for a massive renovation project. BUT, it had an amazing warmth of personality and despite its ugly exterior I wanted to live there. So weird but it worked out and I miss it.
Once again – the power of words, a power that can either build us up or tear us down…with effects that can (and often do) last a lifetime!
I mean ‘am I’ a question, not ‘I am’ a statement. Darn wish we could post edit comments!
I have to say, I am giggling Jane as you describe the house as a bit questionable. I have a vision of the house as a little boy in short pants scuffing its feet and looking out pitiably from under long lashes as if to say ….it wasn’t me that did it! And it’s true. The house didn’t ever DO anything wrong but has become a repository of others fears and is neglected by consequence. I am way of beam seeing some parallels to Agent Nichol here?!
Thanks Jane. I think the fact that the house didn’t start off as being associated with evil or menace is really important. In fact the house needn’t be evil at all, guilt by association and deeds done. I think that is an even stronger metaphor for the Arnot case and the difficulty of determining whether evil always was or whether it grows in otherwise good places.
I think Gamache not knowing things and not understanding Billy just makes him as human and perplexed as the rest of us so we connect better. As do his fears. Speaking of which, I love how Louise builds the growing feeling of menace throughout the series. It’s there lurking. The old Hadley place is a metaphor or perhaps objectification (?) of evil waiting.
I like that comment, Anna, about how Louise Penny is using references to the Hadley House as a metaphor or objectification of evil lurking. I think it’s a growing concern of the villagers of Three Pines, which will see a culmination in the next book, The Cruelest Month. However, I think it’s important to note that at least in the first book, Still Life, we don’t find that the villagers regarded it as inherently evil. I doubt that Timmer Hadley’s friends would have been so willing to sit with her while she was dying if they thought the house was evil. Of course, the actions of her son Ben, by default, did make the house a bit questionable, and the ownership of the house falling into the likes of the Lyon family did nothing to improve it.
It’s so nice to sit here thinking of us all drawling and laughing alone in our homes but absolutely not alone at all. What a lovely idea this book club is!
Hear! Hear!
Is that a pun?
So many of you have said things that I’ve thought rereading this book. I love that as I reread I pick up more and more things that I’d missed on the first time. Personally I will probably read the entire set a few more times. Aside from picking more up each time I just love the personal relationships.. the love of Gamache and Renie-Marie how easily he’s become a part of Three Pines and how they have accepted him as more then the Inspector
Thank you again Louise for writing these books for me to enjoy so very much.
Hope, I too find some of those ambiguities intriguing. I think that Louise Penny must intend for those to remain, at least for the time being, unresolved. I think that’s one way that each reader can decide for herself(or himself, as the case may be) what the meaning might be.
I think I understand what Billy is saying with Whale oil beef hooked. Say out loud with with a sort of drawl running the the words together. It’s quite funny when he says it in the bistro toward the end of How the Light Gets In. I don’t understand the rest though apart from one other phrase from the latter book, Norfolk and chance!
Thank you, Anna, for suggesting that we say “whale oil beef hooked” out loud, with a drawl…here I am, all by myself in the house, drawling and then laughing out loud when I get it!
Hilarious, Anna — I finally got it too! 🙂
Yes, thanks for that tip, Anna. Like Mary Anne, I started saying that phrase, sort of with an accent, and then it came to me! BIG giggle-snort!
I too got a few, but there are a couple I’m still puzzling out. It’s good no ones home right now but me.
uh, finally got it . . . smiling.
Is it “Well, I’ll be fucked”?
Well I’ll be fucked
Whale oil beef hooked
Billy Williams
Isn’t he also Gamache’s fisherman/God from the small village Gamache went to?
I love how Gamache doesn’t just collect evidence, but he collects emotions. He gets to their heart.
I knew right away that CC married Richard Lyon because of the connection to Richard the Lion Hearted. That was, after I had the clues about CC!
I really hated Nicole but near the end, I was feeling sorry for her. But what a twist that it’s not her that’s going to double cross Gamache!
The Three Graces, oh how I would love to see that painting! There must be an artist somewhere that can bring that to life!
Crie..can I just say my heart broke at the ending. Why oh why did it have to be her?? Why oh why can’t she be helped???? She has so much potential! I really did not see that coming.
I wondered why Gamache could not understand a word Billy said, but his wife had no problem at all.
I just started reading these books last week & finished A Fatal Grace yesterday. How lovely to find this site today!
Debby,
Glad you discovered Louise Penny’s books and joined us in the discussion here. Like you, I thought it was rather amusing that Gamache can’t tell what Billy is saying to him–oh, he can make out words and phrases, but they don’t make sense. In fact, his misunderstanding of what Billy is saying to him gives some comic relief to the scene where the Three Graces are out on the frozen lake. The first comment Billy makes is in response to Gamache’s first plea for help: “Em are ducks.” Shortly thereafter, when Billy points out the snowmobiles to Gamache, he says, “High mechanics boat.” Later, as he is riding with Billy on his snowmobile, and asks Biily where they are, Billy responds, ” Chairs might red glass.” Finally, as Gamache has just decided that Billy had gotten them lost on the lake, Billy yells, ” Loudspeaker,” and Gamache sees that they have reached the hospital. I know it’s probably a sign of my warped sense of humor, but thinking of that ride and how Gamache couldn’t understand what seemed to be gibberish from Billy, just makes me giggle every time.
But somebody, please, what was Billy saying? I figured out what he said in a later book, this must be decipherable too. PLEASE!
I think it’s funny too….but I don’t have a clue what he’s saying either.
Usually I want everything to Make Sense by the end of a book, but somehow I’m charmed by the things I don’t understand in this one–from El recognizing Clara and saying she loves her art; to the lemon meringue pie; to Billy Williams’s incomprehensible dialogue, which Reine-Marie finds perfectly clear. What do you think about these ambiguities in A FATAL GRACE?
The first thing Billy says made sense to me, if you “listen” to what he said, rather than read it. That was in the curling lesson, I think. He said “Whale oil beef hooked”. I think, in a way, it’s like an accent. Later, we read what Gamache hears, I think, rather than what Billy says. I couldn’t understand any but that first one, but I think it’s kind of a clue as to how to decipher what Billy says. Maybe Reine-Marie just had more of an ear for Billy’s accent, or maybe she’s just smarter than Gamache… and me.
With my first readings I did not notice the patterns that were being established. Now as I experience Three Pines and Gamache a second time, I am more aware of them. In “Still Life” Clara takes Lucy, Jane’s dog. In “A Fatal Grace” Gamache takes Henri. Each book has a reference to Scripture.
Judith, nice catch on the pattern of similarities in the stories in re pets. Bsides the adoptions of Lucy and Henri, Ruth also takes on the care of Daisy, Ben’s old smelly dog. We don’t get to see a lot of Ruth with Daisy, as apparently, by the time of the end of A Fatal Grace, Ruth is taking her Beer Run, where she sits on the bench at 5:00 every day, because that’s where Daisy is buried, and she is taking time to remember her. I think these examples of the villagers and Gamache taking on the responsibility for someone else’s dog because of death (or prison, as in Ben’s case) give us an important message from Penny. Pets matter–they are part of a family, and it’s important to show that instead of putting the dogs in an animal shelter, they are given a new home, where they can spend the rest of the days left to them in a loving environment. ( I just about started bawling when I thought of Ruth sitting on that bench where Daisy was buried! I do love Ruth so! When I grow up, I want to be just like her!:-)
Thank you Hope for that tidbit about the connection between Louise and Yvette.
You are right Jane, adolescence is often deemed now to extend to age 25 as we know the frontal lobes are still developing. I wonder if “adolescence” is a phase we return to when we have growth spurts, even later in life. I am thinking not just of the midlife crisis stereotype, but those times we struggle and rage against a need to grow and change?
Linda, her father did tell Yvette to take the unattractive clothes from her closet as he didn’t want Gamache “liking” Yvette too much or in “that” way. One suspects her father is afraid of losing Yvette and so can’t let her grow. I keep seeing the butterscotch lollies as a bit sinister, a bribe perhaps or a way of giving something but not anything important. A form of control?
I agree with you Marie about the power of words and acceptance. But the truly important moment comes if and when we can accept ourselves, warts and all, regardless of how others see us. I think there are periods in the book when even Gamache struggles a little with this. Thank goodness because as much as I try, I still haven’t managed it.
I love that line Penny, “Other people ARE god with skin on”. Sometimes we do hear the truth in surprising places, our truth articulated by other mouths. Remember though, there is enormous power in the words we say to ourselves. See Yvette talk herself out of feeling cared for by Gamache.
Thinking about the power of words… spoken but also thought (or written but not sent). In Chapter 18 where Yvette Nichol tells Gamache she’s changed and he tells her, ” Good. Then maybe we can make a fresh start.” That’s followed by, “She slipped her small hand into his. The a**hole believed her.” Trusting Nichol is a tricksy business.
Also in Chapter 18 is the letter Agent Lacoste writes but doesn’t send to the Surete. That’s a laugh out loud moment and certainly rounds out our view of Lacoste. We see why she’s respected and loved by the team… she’s no pushover.
By the way, I was puzzled and surprised that Gamache didn’t recognize the name Eleanor de Poitiers. He’s so wide read and learned.
Connie, I was also a bit surprised that Gamache didn’t put the pieces together sooner about CC’s last name. Of course, had she used a more obvious name like D’Acquitaine, he might have twigged sooner. After a bit of thought, I realized that most people(except for hard-core history buffs) don’t know what the family, or last name, is of most royal figures. For example, I’d bet money that most civilians don’t know that the family name of the royal family in the UK today is Windsor-Mountbatten. (And, the name Windsor is fairly recent–changed from Hanover after WWI). We know Eleanor, married to Henry II(who was an Angevin, but changed the family name to Plantagent) mainly through her ownership of the plot of land in France that was called the Acquitaine, thus Eleanor of Acquitaine. And, of course, CC is not exactly a queen’s name.
Good point, Jane. I guess I just expect Gamache to know everything!
And wondering why Clara married Peter? Well he was handsome and one of the “Montreal Morrows” as CC noticed. A pretty good catch, til you got to know him:).
On the flip side of that, Connie, I’ve often wondered what drew Peter to Clara. She’s not from his economic group, which is clearly the reason his mother dislikes Clara so much. As one of the ” Montreal Morrows, ” and being as handsome as he’s described by Penny, he could have had his pick of women. I wonder if he chose Clara just because she was so different from his family. Since she is also an artist, (although of course not in HIS league–very important, that!) so she understands his need not to toil as a traditional business man. Not many wives could take living in near poverty, either, especially not a trophy wife. The more I think about it, I have to admit a bit of grudging admiration for Peter–after all, he did have the good sense to pick Clara, even if he seems selfish and unthinking a lot of the time. He was devastated to find that Ben, his best friend, had not only killed Jane Neal, but tried to kill Clara as well(wonder if Clara ever told him that Ben had planned to make him, Peter, the fall guy for her murder). We also have a scene between Peter Gamache, and Je3an-Guy, when Armand comes to collect the tape of A Lion in Winter, which his second-in-command, Jean-Guy, has been reluctantly watching. Beauvoir says, ” Mon dieu, no wonder you English won on the Plains of Abraham…you’re all nuts.” Peter then responds, ” It does help in war. . . but we’re not all like Eleanor of Acquitaine or Henry.” Penny then writes, ” He was tempted to point out that Eleanor and Henry were actually both French, but decided that would be rude.”Considering Jean-Guy had just called him, at least by association, nuts, this forbearance of Peter seems rather noble. Don’t get me wrong– I’m not forming a fan group for Peter, but I think he does have some good qualities.
Oh, man, I just now caught another couple of typing errors. I would like to blame it on the keyboard, but I was adding a couple of sentences in the middle of something else and clearly did not do an adequate job of proofing before I clicked on Post Comment. There SHOULD be a comma between Peter and Gamache, otherwise it looks as though I’ve somehow created a composite character named Peter Gamache(!) How the number 3 got into the name of Jean-Guy, I have no recollection. Must’ve been a gremlin. Sorry!
Just a short observation about Clara and Peter. I don’t think Clara married Peter because he was a Montreal Morrow, more in spite of him being a Montreal Morrow.
Also, in this book it strikes me how well Louise makes the case for how important your childhood, and the relations you have with the adults in your life, to how you are as an adult yourself.
You have to wait until The Murder Stone to understand why (the idea of) Clara was so attractive to Peter.
I think that the mystical encounters with ‘God’ are brilliantly described. . . seems like all the people who ‘meet God’ have an openness about them that not everyone shares. Sometimes another human being just seems to be the ‘light carrier’ we need at exactly that moment. It’s an odd combination of who we are and where we are in our own spiritual journey, and something unusually special about that ‘stranger’ who speaks our truth to us. I’ve had that experience myself. I found that I could not ‘keep’ or know that person better, yet the messages that came from that source were my OWN voice coming to me from someone I could trust and believe far better than myself or any known authority. Other people ARE God with skin on. Really. So we should pay attention.
Amen. 🙂
Exactly, Penny. The thing is, it isn’t so important as to whether we as the reader “get it” as to whether the bag lady or the guy in the cafe was God–for Clara and Gamache, those encounters are recognized as having a spiritual context. There’s certainly a good number of examples in both the Old and New Testaments about angelic visitors, or someone being visited by a stranger who just turns out to be the newly resurrected Lord, that for someone in that faith, like Clara and Gamache are, for them to have a recognition that this person, for them, could be “an angel unaware”. Those encounters just happen to happen at moments when they are assailed by self-doubt, and serve to let them know they are on the right path, and need to persevere.
I found Book 2 simply amazing – the amount of information we learned to better know the people of Three Pines, as well as the hints that could be revealed in future books. This depth is something I find amazing for a series, not expecting an author to reveal so much until later and/or in little dribs-and-drabs. Kudos to Louise!
There are many quotes in this book that struck me; thus, I’ll only give two. The first, found on several pages, deals with Ruth: “‘There’s a great deal to Ruth we don’t see,’ [said Peter]…Clara wasn’t sure she agreed with peter about Ruth. Ruth got all her bitterness out in her poetry. She held nothing in, and Clara knew the kind of anger that led to murder needed to ferment for a long time, often sealed beneath a layer of smiles and sweet reason…It was a tribute to this quiet, calm place that its people found space in their hearts for someone as wounded as Ruth.”
These lines struck because they show the power and capacity of people to accept others, despite our warts and faults. WOW – to be so accepted is quite powerful.
The second is spoken by Gamache, in reply to Nichol who claims she’s changed. Gamache knows he’s been wrong about her. Thus he says this: “‘I’m sorry,’ he said.”
I’ve worked for many bosses. Sadly, I cannot think of any who ever said “I’m sorry.” These words, as we know, as mighty powerful. For someone in Gamache’s position to say them, I am once again reminded of someone who is comfortable in his skin, with himself…despite what all is going on around him and that has affected (wounded?) him greatly at work. All that said…
Words are extremely powerful. They can bolster someone; but just as easily, they can “mortally” wound someone. That was a powerful lesson I learned early on as a teacher, how even one word can have a lasting effect on a child. For many, it can be a lifetime effect, an emotional effect that can be far worse and long-reaching that physical abuse. To me, Crie is a perfect example of this.
Remember, “I’m sorry,” is one of those things Gamache has told Nichol she should remember.
Thanks for the reminder, Linda. I can’t help but wonder, however, if this “I’m sorry” lesson from Gamache will be remembered, much less ever used, by Nichol. Just thinking aloud…